The *Working* Guide to Reaching out to Influencers Using Social Media

You may know that I used to do business from far away, I had no way to meet my business partners and contacts in the real world, but despite that I was fairly well-connected.

So here’s my recipe to building connections online: reaching out to niche influencers through social media.

Whether you are trying to pitch a guest post idea, get a review of your book or discuss a potential partnership, here’s the most efficient way to start a working relationship with your niche influencers:

1. Get Introduced: LinkedIn

Linkedin may be not the most efficient network in terms of interacting but it is awesome for building and expanding business connections. You don’t have to be all the time, no need to spend hours there but you can definitely use it to find better ways to get in touch with someone in your industry.

LinkedIn has been the most efficient in terms of connecting to influencers. All you need to do is to ask your first-tier connection to introduce you:

Linkedin Common Connections

This usually works because people feel obliged to respond when they are asked by a person who knows them well.

If you target a blog or a company rather than a specific person (or if the specific influencer is not on LinkedIn at all but his company is), you can use Linkedin company search. You can even select connection tier you want to see in your search results:

Linkedin Company search: “People who work at Mashable”

Quick tip: even if your current contact may be no longer involved with the company in question, chances are he has left plenty of colleagues there (especially if he was there for quite some time). So use the above chart to find second-hand contacts in the business you are interested in.

2. Follow up: Twitter

Here’s the truth: Twitter is not the best tool for the first-time connection. There’s too much clutter to get a proper first introduction to the important and busy person.

Twitter is great for subtle reminders and follow-ups though. So, after you get properly introduced in the step above, don’t forget to follow the same person on Twitter (and probably add him to the corresponding list to quickly find later).

If you are not sure what is considered to be an acceptable follow-up on Twitter, here are a few ideas:

Commenting on content posted by someone else

Joining a conversation in progress by adding relevant information or commentary. Don’t forget the hashtags!

Introducing yourself or striking up a conversation with someone you’d like to get to know

No matter what’s your attitude to Facebook (I for one use it quite actively), I haven’t found it an appropriate place to get a business introduction (especially with the influencers who usually have thousands of connections and thus have lost hope to ever sort their Facebook inbox out).

Facebook is just too personal and better keep it that way.

So if you are serious about the connection, don’t use Facebook to reach out (even if you are already friends there).

I may be wrong but Facebook has always been more about casual and friendly chatting rather than talking business. Trying to use your personal relationships to get some business benefit feels somewhat wrong, so I never do… (You may have a different experience, please share it in the comments!)

Best Ways to Get in Touch

You may have different goals behind your influencer outreach but never use the same reason to get in touch with influencers. All people are different and some of them may be offended by an offer you pitch to others. Do your home work before approaching influencers. Consider offering the following:

Cash rewards: Some of them will be willing to get paid for helping you out

Interview or webinar invites: Some of them will prefer being put in the spotlight. Webinars are especially effective on so many levels including influencer outreach and link building. Here’s a good guide on improving SEO with webinars.

Freebies. Most influencers will be happy to accept a freebie from you and may be willing to help out once they do.

Keeping Sanity…

Now, this is the most important part of the whole post: never overdo. Yes, a reply may take quite long (not because that person you are trying to reach out to doesn’t respect you but because he is most likely to be too busy, have personal issues, etc).

The most reliable way to successfully get in touch with influencers is to become one. So use the time you are waiting wisely: grow your own network, get inspired and develop your ideas.

Reader Interactions

Comments

1 pick a few social media platforms and be very active (dominate). Don’t spread yourself too thin in other words.

2 While being active find a way to provide value. there are many different ways to do this. i.e. go out of your way to help people with problems they might have. This in itself is so powerful because you can often make lifetime friends by performing random acts of kindness.

3 Guest post on authoritative blogs regularly. And Ann you are a perfect example of this. You are well known as for guest blogging. I think Wikepedia should mention “Ann Smarty” When someone looks up guest blogging.

4 Staying consistent. This is probably the most important part. If you do these things consistently over time it will build authority to ones name and then at that point it’s pretty simple to connect with other influencers because “birds of a feather flock together”.

Hi Ann, congratulations on your achievements! You are a source of encouragement for many or are trying to reach their goals.
This is a great strategy and I’ve been connecting more on blogs than places like LinkedIn. I totally agree about not attempting to connect on Facebook. Google+ might also be a place to identify connections but not necessarily a place to reach out for business purposes just yet.